Pyrodex in a Flintlock

[jrkrk]

:grin: Hey I guys just tossing something around in my head. I have a T/C Pennsylvania hunter flintlock in 50 cal. and I live in New Jersey. It is nearly impossible to buy true blackpowder in nj. with all the stupid rules and regs. What I was thinking has anyone ever tried taking pyrodex and loading it down the barrel and having some seperate pyrodex ground down  finer and using it to charge the pan. Any comments are welcome.                                                        Thanx John

[pendennis]

John, the problem with P'dex is that flint ignition is not hot enough to set off the powder itself.  Percussion caps are much hotter; the hammer pressure on the nipple creates a tighter seal; and the nipple/cap combination focuses the spark much better than a flinter.  I'm aware of a couple of guys who created a duplex charge of fffg beneath the P'dex and then fffg in the pan.  Why anyone would want to go to that trouble is beyond me.  Besides, 5 grains of fffg down the bore probably catches more in the grooves and stuck to the barrel that is placed at the breech.

If I'm not mistaken, P'dex pellets use a BP charge to help set them off.

You can buy BP from several sources on the web.  If you have some friends who also shoot BP, you can go in together and save on case lots.  Pennsylvania is a real hotbed of ML.  Have you considered going there or maybe Delaware to buy?

[crow_feather]

jrkrk,

You do need some blackpowder to ignite a flinter unless something has come along in the recent past.  If you want to save your black powder, use 5 grs of 3f as the first charge of a duplex load and 2 to 3 grains of 3f for the pan.
At 10 grains per shot, you should get about 700 shots per pound of black powder.  If you can get 4f for the pan, you should be 1400 shots for the one pound of 3f.  
I would not try 4f as the first part of the duplex load.

My two pennies

C F

[mamaflinter]

jrkrk The only way you can reliably use Pyrodex in a flintlock is to duplex the load. This means that you must have a small amount of blackpowder dumped into the barrel near the breech, the remainder of the charge can be pyrodex. As pendennis stated very correctly, flintlock ignition isn't hot enough to reliably ignite pyrodex powder.

If you want to shoot flintlocks but can't find a shop local to buy powder, my suggestion would be to look ONLINE! There are several master distributors who will ship powder straight to your door, depending on the type of powder you want. James Worthington, owner of Maine Powder House has Elephant, Schuetzen and Swiss. Graf & Sons (Correct me if I'm wrong gentlemen) stocks Goex. Maine Powder House sells his powder in 25 lb. cases. I am pretty sure you can buy as little as 5 lbs. from Graf & Sons. The reason I don't know much about them is I don't use Goex and haven't ordered from them.

I primarily use Elephant and Swiss and for the past 5-6 years we've been buying all our powder from James. His site can be found at www.mainepowderhouse.com I don't know about the other place.

In any event, you could order your powder and then try the flintlock out. You can also use 3fg instad of 4fg for priming charge.